The Cyber War against Russia

US military hackers conducting offensive operations in support of Ukraine, says head of Cyber Command

In an exclusive interview with Sky News, General Paul Nakasone confirmed for the first time that the US had “conducted a series of operations” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
By1 June 202
Speaking in Tallinn, Estonia, the general, who is also director of the National Security Agency (NSA), told Sky News that he is concerned “every single day” about the risk of a Russian cyber attack targeting the US and said that the hunt forward activities were an effective way of protecting both America as well as allies.
General Nakasone confirmed for the first time that the US was conducting offensive hacking operations in support of Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
He told Sky News: “We’ve conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum; offensive, defensive, [and] information operations.”
The four star general did not detail the activities, but explained how they were lawful, conducted with complete civilian oversight of the military and through policy decided at the Department of Defence.
Continue reading at news.sky.com

Why Hasn’t Russia Unleashed ‘Cybergeddon’ in Its War on Ukraine?

May 4, 2022
Russia’s war in Ukraine, now nearing its 10-week mark, has been devastating, killing thousands of civilians and forcing millions to flee their homes. Thus far, this devastation has been wrought primarily by conventional military means, without Moscow launching the “full-scale cyber assault” or “cybergeddon-scale attacks” feared early on. As various authors have pointed out, “Ukrainian air defense and aircraft didn’t appear to be affected by cyber disruptions, and there are no reports of critical infrastructure damage from cyberattacks”; “Ukraine’s electricity grid, its communications systems and other infrastructure are still largely up. Its president is streaming from his government office.” Why?

Read also:
A Circle in the Darkness: Post-War Europe

One group of scholars has long argued that expectations of cyber apocalypse have been overblown, with doomsayers ignoring that cyber and military campaigns serve different purposes. Cyber operations, these experts say, are neither “catastrophic weapons of destruction” nor good for “managing destruction at scale”—meaning they’re unlikely to be the game-changers many anticipated in modern warfare. “It’s much simpler,” four of these authors write, “for Russia to launch an artillery barrage at a [Ukrainian] power substation than to hack it from Moscow.”
Continue reading at www.russiamatters.org

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